On March 16, 2006 Convergys and the Florida Department of
Management Services admitted that personnel data for state employees wound
up in India.

The state said it wants $5 million from Convergys,
partly to punish the company but also to help improve its People First
system for more than 100,000 workers whose sensitive data could have been
compromised.

Department of Management Services Secretary Tom Lewis
said," The estimate of the total number of individuals who could be affected
- it doesn't mean that they were, or that half or all of them were - that
might have been involved is 108,000 as of now, A thousand of them might
have been involved, or 10,000 or all of them."

Convergys issued a statement from its Cincinnati
headquarters saying it was "misled" by a subcontractor, GDXdata of Denver,
which Lewis and Emerick said let the Florida government work slip overseas
for 12 months starting in mid-2003.

Lewis told the Florida Senate Governmental Oversight
and Productivity Committee: "The use of offshore services was inappropriate
and unacceptable."

Lewis said Convergys knew of the violation last
August, when it cut off its contract with GDXdata, but it did not tell the
state until February.

Chris Emerick, Florida director for Convergys disputed
that, saying the company alerted the state after receiving an anonymous
letter about the India operation on July 11.

The investigation by the DMS inspector general quickly
spread to include the Office of Statewide Prosecution, Florida
Department of Law Enforcement and U.S. Attorney's Office

Democratic lawmakers State Senators Walter Campbell,
and Les Miller pressed Convergys to disclose when and why it dumped GDXdata.

"Standing here today in hindsight, knowing what we
know now, we should have pursued the investigation more aggressively,"
Emerick told the Senate panel. "We should have done more at that time."

He said that "for the first time, on Feb. 15," GDXdata
told Convergys about the India operation. Lewis said, however, that e-mails
and other documents his investigators obtained from GDXdata were "compelling
evidence" that Convergys was aware last August.

Sen. Nancy Argenziano, who chairs the committee, told
Lewis she will demand "all correspondence and e-mails" between GDXdata and
Convergys or DMS, to find out who knew how much, and when.

Convergys has the nine-year, $350 million contract for
online automation of state personnel services - Florida's biggest
privatization project. The company was not accused of illegal activity.

Lewis said Convergys has agreed to provide a "one-year
credit protection program" for state employees, allowing up to $50,000
coverage for losses. He said Convergys agreed to "an independent audit," if
he can find a company willing to take on the job "in this post-Enron era."

Convergys will also cover the cost of notifying state
employees to check their financial records.

According to Lewis, the contract with Convergys will
be toughened to require state approval of all subcontractors, as well as
immediate notice of any possible breaches.

The part Convergys hasn't agreed to, Lewis said, is "a
$5 million cash payment to the state." He said about half that amount would
cover the credit-protection plan, independent audit, notification and other
safeguards he outlined - and that the other half should go for making People
First "more user-friendly" and punishing Convergys.

"Through no fault of state employees, they're going to
go through an emotionally concerning, possibly worrisome time," Lewis said.
He said "in return for that," state workers deserve some system
improvements, and Convergys needs to feel some pain.

Lewis said the People First system, plagued by errors
and long waiting periods for employees seeking help, has been steadily
improving in recent months.

The India, Barbados and China Connection

The situation became public Dec. 25 when the
Tallahassee Democrat reported a lawsuit secretly filed early last
year by two former GDXdata employees who said the company had processed
Florida personnel information in India, Barbados and China. At the time,
Convergys said all employee data was safely held in computers in Florida and
Denver and declined to discuss its reasons for axing GDXdata.

Lewis said. "The data was all loaded in a server and
then I'm at my desk in Bombay and I have a user name and a password, so I go
in and access that server and pull down 50 records and I work them, and I
pull down 50 more and I work them - and there are 200 people on either side
of me doing the same thing."

The former GDXdata employees who filed the suit in
Leon County Circuit Court alleged that the subcontractor cut indexing costs
from about 6 cents to a penny per page by using services in India

A man whose
name was used by another man as an alias in the early 1990s has filed a
federal lawsuit against Collier County sheriff’s officials. The suit
accusing the officials of repeatedly arresting him on another man’s warrant.
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